Month: February 2012

Yesterday, Dominion Post columnist Rosemary McLeod wrote a controversial piece titled “Why I feel for the kids of ego-trippers”. In it, she criticises the ‘strange’ methods of conception employed by, amongst others, female-to-male transgender men who have given birth to children. Her overall argument is that such men are ego-tripping, publicity-craving ‘he/she’s’ who are inflicting psychological damage upon their children.

The majority of commenters on the Post’s website have also condemned the column. However, a small handful have criticised the ‘disgusting quagmire of gender confusion’ supposedly brought about by ‘[s]hrieking fanatical people [who] don’t think very clearly’. Such comments are typical of anti-protestor/anti-feminist/anti-difference rhetoric that seeks to marginalise one’s opposition as illogical and unreasonable, and I will not dissect them in any depth here.

As a white, straight, cisgender middle class male, I can’t pretend to fully comprehend the discrimination that transgendered individuals face on a day-to-day basis. I also haven’t experienced the inner turmoil of coming to grips with one’s gender identity, or the long and protracted process of transitioning.

Nevertheless, as a historian, i’m constantly faced with writing about things that I haven’t directly experienced myself. Therefore, I feel compelled to respond to Rosemary’s column in whatever small way that I can. But how? Well, since Rosemary’s supporters seem convinced that their opponents are shrieking, unthinking fanaticists (a sentiment as offensive as it is incorrect), I thought i’d give them what they apparently crave – a cold, hard, logical breakdown of Rosemary’s argument, and an itemised analysis of why it is completely wrong.